2018 Florist Growth Focus: Convey Value of Flowers Beyond Price

In our last blog Macro Drivers of Industry Growth, we share several positive factors contributing to continued growth in the floral industry including generational shifts and changing consumer preferences. This week, we dive deeper into the growing consumer demand for socially-conscious, sustainable and life-enhancing products and services.

Millennials Drive Demand

Leading the charge in rewarding businesses for being socially conscious and sustainable are the more than 80 million Millennials. Being constantly connected via their smartphones, this demographic is more educated about products and services and are willing to spend more for goods to companies they feel meet the social and sustainable criteria.

The best strategy is to build a web page on your website to share your story of how you started as a business, any organic and sustainable practices in which you engage, and any charities you support or collaborate with on community projects. Then, develop a schedule of social posts highlighting these initiatives, including link back to this page on your website. Take a step further to create a vanity URL such as www.flowershopwebite.com/sustainability. The result of this practice is you'll start being found in searches.

Tout Expertise of How Flowers Enhance the "Life Experience"

All demographics appreciate great information of how flowers could enhance their lives and the Society of American Florists (SAF) is a great resource to educate yourself on the following multiple studies -- you need to be a member to access the following studies:

• Power of Giving Flowers Study. SAF and the American Floral Endowment commissioned a Rutgers University study in 2006, to determine how people perceive others based on the types of gifts they give.The research reveals that people who give flowers make the best impression compared to other gifts studied.
• Ecology of Flowers Study. Flowers feed compassion. Study participants who lived with flowers for less than a week felt an increase in feelings of compassion for others.
• Impact of Flowers & Plants on Workplace Productivity Study. SAF partnered with an internationally recognized research team at Texas A&M University to learn how flowers and plants in the workplace impact productivity and problem solving.
• Flowers & Seniors Study. This research proves flowers help senior citizens cope with the challenges of aging.

As with content surrounding your social and sustainable practices, we recommend you create a page or start blogging on your website extracting topics related to research. Then, post to social. The objective is to fill your social media with posts that are not just sales focused but to convey you as a business customers would like to get to know.